Prose, Terminology, Fluff, & Presentation: Spreadsheets or Haiku?

wrecan · May 9, 2012

Bedrockgames said:
I can't say the one's listed in the entry you gave were too hard to deal with (certainly not what I would label a "mess").

The mess is that they had to be dealt with on a spell-by-spell basis in the first place. Why does every spell need to have individualized disruption parameters? Resilient sphere is not resilient to most disruptive magics, but other effects are. It's a hodgepodge that you really can't expect a DM to memorize.

Personally i feel stuff like this does present a challenge because the GM has to know the spells his monster can use but 1) i think the effort is worth the richness it brings to play and 2) the gm really should learn spell effect anyways, and monster encounter prep is a great place to start.

We'll have to agree to disagree. I don't think the game should require DMs to memorize all the spell effects to be an effective DM. He should be free to concentrate on important things like crafting a story, developing engaging NPCs, and devising challenging encounters. Memorizing minutia to avoid having to cross-reference rulebooks in the midst of an encounter? That seems like a recipe for slowdowns.

It's a barrier to entry, and it's a pretty high one.

delericho · May 9, 2012

I'm coming late to this debate, but for me there's a key difference between the language of the core and the language of the rest.

Bluntly, I'm not going to get inspired by the details of the sleep spell or the fluff surrounding Orcs. Any text around the stat-blocks here is a waste of words as far as I'm concerned - all I care about is that these things exist, and what they do in game terms, because I'm going to use them in the game and that's their only utility to me.

However, the above is not true as soon as we move beyond core elements. Once you're into detailing new and unique monsters, new spells, and new magic items (that is: anything we haven't seen before), then I do care about the surrounding fluff, the flavour text, or whatever you want to call it.

So, yeah, for the core, please just give me the information I need to play the game, in the most straightforward "specification language" you can. Move beyond the core, and especially for setting and adventure materials, and you should move to a much more elaborate style.

(Of course, that's just my preference, as it best suits me. Given that every edition is someone's first edition, and given that they're unlikely to produce both a "specification version" and a "flavour text version", they should err towards benefitting new players - and that probably means producing rulebooks that are evocative and inspiring.)

Bedrockgames · May 9, 2012

wrecan said:
The mess is that they had to be dealt with on a spell-by-spell basis in the first place. Why does every spell need to have individualized disruption parameters? Resilient sphere is not resilient to most disruptive magics, but other effects are. It's a hodgepodge that you really can't expect a DM to memorize.

Thisis just preference obviously, but because spells produce unique effects i think it creates a more textured world for their paremeters to be unique. To me it just works better, but ymmv

We'll have to agree to disagree. I don't think the game should require DMs to memorize all the spell effects to be an effective DM. He should be free to concentrate on important things like crafting a story, developing engaging NPCs, and devising challenging encounters. Memorizing minutia to avoid having to cross-reference rulebooks in the midst of an encounter? That seems like a recipe for slowdowns.

I think for certain games this approach works great, just not D&D. In my own games for example I try to keep the mechanics simple enough and rules light so the GM can focus on running the adventure. But with D&D i just need that level of texture these sorts of details provide. I don't need 3E level system mastery, for me 2E was about perfect.

It's a barrier to entry, and it's a pretty high one.

yes mechanics are a barrier to entry. I cannot dny that streamlining them makes it easier for initiates. On that count i think you are right, but i also think it weakens my enjoyment of D&D. However 4E's solution of reducing things to mechanical stat blocks raises a new barrier. I can enjoy reading text that weavese mechanics and prose together (even if the mechanics are more streamined and uniform). But just throwing up a bunch of stat blocks empasizes the math and numvers in a way that loses me. Realky we are talking about two seperate issues here that houldn't be confused: 1) how streamlined should mechanics be and 2) how should the mechanics be presented.

Sunseeker · May 9, 2012

wrecan said:
The mess is that they had to be dealt with on a spell-by-spell basis in the first place. Why does every spell need to have individualized disruption parameters? Resilient sphere is not resilient to most disruptive magics, but other effects are. It's a hodgepodge that you really can't expect a DM to memorize.

We'll have to agree to disagree. I don't think the game should require DMs to memorize all the spell effects to be an effective DM. He should be free to concentrate on important things like crafting a story, developing engaging NPCs, and devising challenging encounters. Memorizing minutia to avoid having to cross-reference rulebooks in the midst of an encounter? That seems like a recipe for slowdowns.

It's a barrier to entry, and it's a pretty high one.

I don't even look at spells when making my NPCs. I just figure out what I want them to cast and make something up that's fitting. Takes me about 30 seconds and I never need to reference anything.

This is part of my objection to spells as prose. I have no use for fluff and prose on something my players will never see, but if I'm not given any equator to write a spell other than as a novela, I'm not going to be assed to make up fun, creative things.

Bedrockgames · May 9, 2012

shidaku said:
I don't even look at spells when making my NPCs. I just figure out what I want them to cast and make something up that's fitting. Takes me about 30 seconds and I never need to reference anything.

This is part of my objection to spells as prose. I have no use for fluff and prose on something my players will never see, but if I'm not given any equator to write a spell other than as a novela, I'm not going to be assed to make up fun, creative things.

I can appreciate this. It isn't my style but now I see where you are coming from. For me I prefer to use spells as written so the setting and world have a sense of consistency. It is simply a different approach to play.

Sunseeker · May 9, 2012

Bedrockgames said:
I can appreciate this. It isn't my style but now I see where you are coming from. For me I prefer to use spells as written so the setting and world have a sense of consistency. It is simply a different approach to play.

Is wager that less than 5% of all the spells published in any edition are setting neutral. You're more likely to get more setting-fitting spells if you made them up. No matter how they fluff it, fireball is firebqll everywhere.

Bedrockgames · May 9, 2012

shidaku said:
Is wager that less than 5% of all the spells published in any edition are setting neutral. You're more likely to get more setting-fitting spells if you made them up. No matter how they fluff it, fireball is firebqll everywhere.

Yeah, I never had a problem using fireball across settings. You can always tailor spells to each world if you need (for me consistency is the key issue, so as long as fireball works the same or follows the same rules from casting to casting I am fine with it). Look at the 2e setting material. They had a whole list altered spell effects. But they were consistent. Dark Sun also took some real liberties (and both settings created many new spells and items----a practice most gms employ to make their world unique). What I am not a fan of is the GM just making up magical effects on the fly when running a wizard. I do want some parity between npc wizards and pc wizards.

Of course now we are entirely in the realm of preference. If that works for you, that is how you should play.

Sunseeker · May 9, 2012

Bedrockgames said:
Yeah, I never had a problem using fireball across settings. You can always tailor spells to each world if you need (for me consistency is the key issue, so as long as fireball works the same or follows the same rules from casting to casting I am fine with it). Look at the 2e setting material. They had a whole list altered spell effects. But they were consistent. Dark Sun also took some real liberties (and both settings created many new spells and items----a practice most gms employ to make their world unique). What I am not a fan of is the GM just making up magical effects on the fly when running a wizard. I do want some parity between npc wizards and pc wizards.

Of course now we are entirely in the realm of preference. If that works for you, that is how you should play.

Well, my spells are on par with what a pc can do, they're just reflavored or paired to different effects.

wrecan · May 9, 2012

Bedrockgames said:
But with D&D i just need that level of texture these sorts of details provide. I don't need 3E level system mastery, for me 2E was about perfect.

Personally, I don't need the quirky minutia. Fireball, for instance, can be listed in a statblock as:
fireball (burst 8 within 10, Int vs. Ref, [Lvl]d6 fire damage; half damage on a miss)

or in saving throw nomenclature:

fireball (40' rad, 50' range, [Lvl]d6 fire damage; half damage if save vs. spells)

Done. Most spells -- at least those that would be cast in the heat of combat -- should be abbreviatable that way. No cross-referencing needed.

charm person (40' range, Int v. Will, target is friendly, re-attack before any act against its nature with cumulative -1 on attack roll)

The PHB can have the detailed description, but every spell should come with this handy one-line description suitable for statblocks. If it can't then it shouldn't be a spell usable in combat. Use conditions and keywords liberally to save space. A DM can have a handy one-page sheet of all conditions and keywords in the game as part of the DM shield, or on his computer.

Bedrockgames said:
However 4E's solution of reducing things to mechanical stat blocks raises a new barrier.

I'm not defending 4e. I had my own statblock that weaves prose and mechanics together. But those mechanics should be as simple as possible and as complex as absolutely necessary.

Bedrockgames · May 9, 2012

Again we are talking about two different issues (mechanical complexity and presentation). But I think i just come down on the opposite side of both of them from you (which shows just how difficult a task wptc has ahead of them). For me those entries do not excite me or make me want to learn about the spell (I find the prose really helps me learn spell effects and the prose if fun). On the subject of mechanical complexity, i do want a bit more from my spells than you suggest here. Spells are the one area of the game where I want a bit of complexity (whether the spell is being used for combat or non combat). But again this is preference. You are not wrong and I am not wrong.

One area of caution though, assumming what you want equals how games should be designed in general leads to trouble. There is no ideal game design. Games are designed around a whole host of preferences and with different types of players in mind. D&D in particular walks a tricky line because it is designed for the broadest customer base. So to remain the most popular game it needs to do things that appeal to you and me, but without overly irritating either of us ( a tall order).